For the Hughes brothers, there was no real shift from dealing with the inner-city America that was the backdrop to their first three films - two features (Menace II Society and Dead Presidents) and a documentary, American Pimp - to making a film about London at the tail-end of the 19th century.

“This is a ghetto story,” says Albert of their new film, which focuses on the Whitechapel district of London in the autumn of 1888. From Hell takes place over the 10-week period during which Jack the Ripper committed his grisly series of slayings. “It concerns poverty, violence and corruption, which are themes we deal with in our movies because they fascinate us,” he insists. “These particular characters happen to be white, but all poor people have the same problems.”

The brothers’ new movie takes its title from Alan Moore’s graphic novel, which was originally published as a 10-part series in Taboo and, in the two brief years since its first appearance, has already acquired cult status.

“Alan Moore is the dean of graphic novelists,” says From Hell’s producer Don Murphy, who previously delved into the dark side of human nature when he produced Oliver Stone’s controversial Natural Born Killers. “I am a comic-book fan and have admired Don’s work for years. I was immediately hooked by From Hell without even realising at first that it was about Jack the Ripper. It’s a brilliant, complex and obsessive story, well documented with extensive research and pages of footnotes.”

Given the fact that the Hughes brothers’ directorial style is, in a slightly different sense, also extremely graphic, one might have expected them to be drawn to Murphy’s novel for many of the same reasons. But in their case, it turns out that it was first and foremost the subject matter of From Hell that got them involved. Indeed, more than just an interest in those areas of society where poverty and violence collide, the brothers had been nurturing a virtual obsession with the career of Jack the Ripper since early childhood.

The Hughes brothers (Allen, left, and Albert, right) on location in Prague, where 19th-century Whitechapel - whose streets were terrorised by the mysterious Ripper (above center) - was lovingly recreated on a 20-acre site.

Their interest in the tale of the mysterious murderer - whose identity has never been completely confirmed (although a couple of recent books come up with some pretty convincing theories) - began when they were just seven years old, and watching the Leonard Nimoy-presented TV series, In Search of…. “It was so scary that it has stuck in our heads,” says Allen. “We’ve since absorbed everything about the case we can – books, movies, documentaries…”

Indeed, it was in the process of doing extended research into the Ripper case that the brothers realised that they were not alone in their fascination with the autumn 1888 murder spree: Johnny Depp was also, it turns out, a ‘Ripper freak’.

“I was always attracted to things on the darker side, especially when I was young,” says the multi-faceted star, who plays the part of police inspector Fred Abberline in the film. “I must have some 25 books, maybe more, on the case. There are so many theories. Any of them could be correct: it’s impossible to know. I’ve always thought it would make a great movie if very carefully done.”

The subject of the man who was the modern world’s first real serial killer came up some six years ago, when the Hughes met Depp to discuss another project and happened to mention casually they were also developing a film about Jack the Ripper. Depp asked to read the script. “I really liked it,” he recalls. “Then suddenly, years later, I get a call from them: ‘How would you like to play Abberline?’”